Dr Strangelove
by Rorschach's Blot
Summary: Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The N2 Mine
1. Groundhog's Day

Disclaimer: I in no way accept the blame... err claim credit for any material or intellectual property I may or may not have 'borrowed' from legitimate sources. Legitimate as in, has names like Columbia Pictures or Gainax Studios, and has a team of rabid attack lawyers on call.

Dr. Strangelove, Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The N2 Mine

Immediately after Third Impact Aka The Tang scene:

Shinji awoke to find a glowing woman with a kind face smiling down at him.

"M . . . mother?" Shinji asked in shock. "Is it really you?"

"No Shinji," the glowing woman replied, "I've taken this form to interact with you and . . ."

"Then could you take another?" Shinji asked, death having made the shy boy a bit more assertive. "I already have enough reasons to need therapy and I'd appreciate it if you'd put some clothes on."

"Alright," the entity agreed, "who's form would you like me to take?"

"Uh . . ." Shinji's eyes crossed for a few moments. "Could you take the form of the TV anchorwoman that talked about the battles?"

"The one that said you were a menace and should be locked up?"

"At least she was honest about her opinion of me," Shinji said with a shrug.

"Alright." The form changed into someone he'd see on TV far too often, complete with microphone and ear piece. "Now, you have been chosen to go back and put right what once went wrong. To save your friends and . . ."

"That sounds like the plot to that American sitcom Asuka was addicted to, Quantum Leak or something like that. Actually," Shinji decided, "I'd rather stay here."

"It's a formless void," the voice deadpanned.

"It's not so bad," Shinji sighed, enjoying the complete lack of any red headed harridans or child abandoning bastards, "thank you for the offer though."

"If you don't go back then you'll be sent to keep your father company for all eternity, with weekend visits from Asuka!" She noticed that the boy was considering it. "And all meals are prepared by Misato," she added sadistically.

"Oh . . . well . . ." Shinji really didn't know how to respond. 'Damn, I knew limbo was too much to hope for. Hello, Hell.'

"And that's not all," the entity continued, "but I'd rather not go into it. It's unspeakably horrific."

"Can't be worse than going back," Shinji said sullenly.

"Oh it is," the voice of Asian news correspondent Trisha Takanawa assured him, far too cheerfully for his tastes.

"Do I have a choice?"

"Nope."

IIIIIIIIII

Shinji looked around the train station. He was back, back where it all began, back to a world besieged by angels, back to a filthy apartment, back to . . . fuck this. Shinji hopped back on the train, running away had never worked before but maybe this time was different.

In desperation the UN dropped an N2 mine, destroying every living thing in the blast radius except the angel. Shinji never even saw the flash.

IIIIIIIIII

"What the hell happened?" Shinji awoke to the entity's screech. "You were only back for two hours."

"I did what you wanted," Shinji said calmly, "now leave me alone." The boy was giddy at the prospect of being allowed to float, unmolested in his own private limbo.

"Oh no," the entity growled and poked him with her microphone, "it's not going to be that easy. You're going back again, and again, and again, until you get it right."

"No." Shinji was devastated but not surprised, what other afterlife could an angel slayer expect?

IIIIIIIIII

Shinji looked around the train station. He was back, back where it all began, back to a world besieged by angels, back to a filthy apartment, back to . . . fuck this. Never let it be said that the boy did not learn from his mistakes. Shinji ran out of the station and away from what he knew to be a future blast zone. He got a lot further then he expected, but not far enough to avoid being turned into a crispy critter by the blast.

IIIIIIIIII

Shinji awoke to see the entity glaring down at him.

"What?" Shinji demanded. "I did better that time."

"By about fifteen minutes," the entity growled, "want a little hint? Why don't you try waiting for Misato. There's not a chance you'll get away from that blast without a car."

"A car hmmm?" Shinji mused.

IIIIIIIIII

Shinji arrived at the train station and he hit the ground running. The boy had no idea how to hotwire a car but hey, how hard could it be? He was still working on it when the N2 mine detonated.

IIIIIIIIII

Apparently hotwiring cars is harder then I thought it would be, Shinji thought to himself as he waited for Misato to arrive. The boy had reluctantly concluded that the easiest solution to his problem would be to wait for his slob of a future guardian to show up and to catch a ride with her.

"You must be Shinji," the woman cooed.

"Just shut up and drive," Shinji said sullenly.

"Fine," Misato agreed, thinking he was definitely the commander's son, from his tone and ignoring the fact that she was two hours late picking him up from what was essentially a war zone.

Shinji waited until the N2 mine dropped and Misato was distracted before attempting to escape. I say attempting to because the woman easily caught up with him and showed him how little trouble it was for someone with military training to catch up with an inexperienced civilian.

Shinji was more then a little annoyed by the time he finally strolled into the eva cage. He ignored Ritsuko's little speech in favor of glaring at his father.

"And you will pilot it," Gendo pronounced.

"Eat a dick," Shinji growled back. "And can someone get these handcuffs off me?" Who knew that Misato kept a pair of fur covered cuffs in the glove compartment. Though to give credit where credit is due, they were much more comfortable then the all metal ones they'd used on him in the past.

"Wheel out the spare," Gendo ordered.

"But she's . . ."

"Not dead yet," Gendo interrupted.

"Yes sir."

Shinji watched impassively as they wheeled Rei out. Piss on this for a bag of doughnuts, he still hadn't forgiven the girl for her role in the third impact. Kinda hard not to take it all personally, especially when the glowing entity kept taking her form when she got mad.

"Like I'm supposed to care," Shinji laughed, "just use one of the other clones."

"Uh . . . what'd you say Shinji?" Ritsuko asked in shock.

"I said." Shinji smiled. "I won't pilot it," Shinji screamed, "I won't help you cause the third impact and I won't be your tool."

Gendo made a discrete motion to one of the guards, Shinji was quietly taken to an interrogation room. However the boy was so used to pain that more and more extreme methods had to be used to get anything other than a list of Gendo's failings as a father and a human being until, unable to take the stress, his body gave out three hours into the questioning.

IIIIIIIIII

"Back again?" The entity asked cheerfully. "Well, you did last longer this time."

"Fuck you," Shinji snapped. Dying multiple times had done a lot to boost the boy's confidence, or at least to remove any motive to care about other people's feelings.

"That's the spirit!" Trisha's voice cheered him on. "Give 'em hell!"

"I need some time on a computer," Shinji said suddenly.

"There are plenty for you to use back in your life," the entity said cheerfully, "have fun with that."

It took Shinji only a couple of tries before he finally found an unattended terminal with internet access at the train station, but it was another dozen before he found the information he wanted, as he kept getting distracted by porn.

He found the information on how to hotwire a car on Kensuke's home page, strangely enough.

IIIIIIIIII

Shinji was cruising down the highway in his new convertible with the wind in his hair and the sun on his back. He'd escaped his fate, he'd managed to find a car, he was speeding away from the N2 blast zone, life was good. Until he ran into a road block.

The boy growled in annoyance as the soldiers escorted him to a small holding area which he knew from long experience was not quite far enough to be out of danger. The boy sighed in resignation as the pressure wave tipped one of the trucks over. It took him fifteen minutes to bleed out, all in all it could have been worse.

It took Shinji another ten tries before he found away around the roadblocks, once again Kensuke's homepage had all the information he needed and another hundred before he decided to give up. It seemed that in the times that he managed to survive both the blast and the angel that NERV would always find him, they were just too well damn funded.

Fuck it, Shinji thought to himself, and fuck them.

IIIIIIIIII

Once again Shinji was back in a train station and once again he was left with nothing to do until his future guardian arrived.

"Hmmm." Shinji frowned, however shall I pass the time until Misato gets here? He pulled out her picture and . . .

Fwap, fwap, fwap, fwap!

For the first time, he realized how considerate the woman was for sending such an inspiring photo.

IIIIIIIIII

A very reluctant Maya approached the commander with the news of his son's current location.

"We've located the third child sir," Maya said nervously, "it's not good."

"Where is he?" Gendo demanded.

"Well . . ."

IIIIIIIIII

"Wahooo," Shinji cheered from the back of the N2 mine he was riding to the apocalypse, "wahooooo." He waved his cowboy hat a couple more times before being vaporized.

It was totally worth the fifty-two resets it took to pull it off, just to see the stunned look on Trisha's face, Shinji thought later.

IIIIIIIIII

Shinji smiled as Unit One activated. The bridge crew watched in shock as the Eva drew its progressive knife and thrust it through the window, neatly slicing the Commander in half.

"Well," Shinji said with a grin, "that was fun. How many do you think I can get before they find a way to stop me?"

The answer turned out to be not many as they raised the pressure in the LCL to render him unconscious. Still, killing Gendo was so satisfying that Shinji spent the next five hundred resets doing it again and again.

He probably would have continued doing so for quite a few more resets, but the bored entity had pointed out that there were probably more fun ways to kill Gendo, than just stabbing him with a progressive knife.

IIIIIIIIII

The bridge crew watched in horror as Unit One stepped out of the way and motioned for the angel to pass.

"What are you doing?" Misato screamed.

"Angels are god's messengers," Shinji replied, "it would be a sin to obstruct it."

IIIIIIIIII

A smile bloomed on Shinji's face as he raked in his winnings.

"Wait, kid." One of the men called out.

"What is it?" Shinji asked blandly.

"I gotta know, what did you have?"

"Six high," Shinji replied.

IIIIIIIIII

"Stomp, stomp, stomp," Shinji laughed, "die ants die!"

"Are you finished?" Misato asked, a little unnerved at his behavior. "Cause we really gotta go."

"Fine," Shinji sighed in disappointment, "let's go."

They passed the rest of the ride in silence, Shinji didn't say a word until after Ritsuko gave her spiel about the Eva and Gendo appointed him the pilot.

"Gee," Shinji said, "that thing is kinda big. I bet people look really small from the cockpit . . . small like . . . ants."

"You know what," Misato said shrilly, "I think Rei would be a better choice . . . she's not dead yet is she?"

IIIIIIIIII

Ritsuko glared at Misato as she stepped out of the elevator.

"Where is the third child?" The bottle blond demanded.

"He was here a minute ago," Misato said weakly.

IIIIIIIIII

Shinji giggled as he hacked the Magi, if this worked it would be so worth the five, almost complete to the end, resets he'd studied computer programming in between battle's to get it right.

Truthfully, he's been a bit surprised that the information on how to do it wasn't on Kensuke's home page.

It was on Maya's.

'Never blog while drunk.' Shinji chuckled to himself, as he recalled how he'd stumbled across the access codes, sandwiched between bad lesbian love poetry and some surprisingly well crafted pornographic fantasies involving the Nerv tech and her sempai.

IIIIIIIIII

Pandemonium was the only word that could be used to describe the scene on the NERV bridge.

"Sir," one of the bridge bunnies called out, "another pattern blue detected . . . and another . . . and another . . . my god there are hundreds of them all over the world."

"Game over man, game over!" one of the other bridge bunnies could be heard yelling in the background, until Misato smacked him, to bring him back to his senses.

"The UN is launching missiles enhanced with N2 mines, as per End Scenario doctrine," another tech informed the room.

"Status of the pattern blues?"

"Uh . . . they just disappeared sir," the nervous bridge bunny said.

"I'm finding traces indicating that the Magi have been hacked, sir."

"What?" Gendo was beside himself. "Notify the UN to stop the missiles!"

"Too late, sir," the tech replied gravely. "The missiles were launched automatically by computer upon receipt of the confirmation codes from the Magi. The surface of the Earth is going to be completely wiped of all life in less than five minutes and there is no way to stop it. The only good news I have is that the combined force of the explosions is going to wipe out the angels as well as humanity. Game over, sir."

IIIIIIIIII

Shinji was still laughing when Section Two found him. His last words after absorbing a hail of gunfire were . . .

"That was soooo worth it," Shinji gasped.

IIIIIIIIII

Shinji often wondered if he was the only one affected by all the resets. He was sure that no one was acting the way they would have the first time around, for instance he could have sworn he'd seen Rei roll her eyes at Gendo just the other day. Then again, it was also possible that the first time around had been so long ago that his memories were beginning to fade a bit.

"No matter," Shinji said to himself. The boy hopped out of the Eva and settled down on the beach to enjoy the rays, you'd be surprised at how far you can get on an emergency power supply.

IIIIIIIIII

Obligatory crossover scene!

Shinji was having a nice leisurely stroll around Tokyo III when he was distracted by the sounds of chanting coming from one of the smaller shelters near the single Catholic school for the city.

Finding that they'd left the door to the shelter open, Shinji walked in to find over a dozen Catholic school girls praying aloud.

One of the girl's spotted Shinji and began to smile, before standing up and stripping, much to his surprise.

"Makoto, what are you doing? We should be praying." a blue haired girl protested.

"Yeah, well my prayers have been answered," the stacked brunette replied, "I'm not going to die a virgin!"

There was a loud cheer from most of the girls as clothes went flying.

"You know what they say," a blond hair girl spoke up, "sin with haste, repent in leisure suits."

"Close enough," a girl with long black haired agreed, which seemed to take all the wind out of the bluentte's sails as she simply shrugged and started stripping.

IIIIIIIIII

Shinji was searching for that particular shelter again during the next reset, while he waited for the N2 mine to drop, when he was approached by a painted woman in tight clothing.

"Hey kid," she said in a gravely voice, "how bout a free tumble while we wait for the monster to kill us all?"

"What the hell," Shinji shrugged and agreed, deciding he could look for the shelter next reset.

Later...

'Damn! Who the hell wants a bunch of virgins when you can have a woman

who knows what the hell she's doing?!' Shinji thought to himself, as he collapsed in exhaustion.

"You're not crapping out on me already are you? We're just getting warmed up."

It took another thousand resets before Shinji remembered that there were other things he could do such as . . .

IIIIIIIIII

Shinji and his father glared at each other across the Eva bay.

"Okay," Shinji agreed, "I'll pilot it . . . on one condition."

"What is that?" Gendo demanded.

"That you come down here and tell me face to face," Shinji said firmly, "or else the world can burn for all I care."

"Agreed."

A smile bloomed on Shinji's face as he watched his father get closer and closer.

"Satisfied?" Gendo asked.

"Almost," Shinji replied. The look of shock on the man's face when the gun came out was something that warmed Shinji's heart, the look of pain on Gendo's as the nine millimeter hollow points shredded his lungs was something that Shinji would treasure for all time. The expression of glee didn't leave Shinji's face. Not even when the guards opened fire, and brought an end to the disturbed boy. As he died, one thought reverberated through Shinji's mind. It was totally worth the seventy-two tries it took to learn to take this off Misato without her noticing, I'm gonna have to do this again. And so he did, again and again and at least a thousand more times until shooting became a bit blase.

IIIIIIIIII

Gendo's eyes bulged as Shinji savagely twisted the knife . . . Gendo tried to scream through his crushed throat . . . Gendo did scream as the flames consumed his body . . . Gendo gurgled as Shinji pushed him down, down, down, into the LCL . . .Gendo choked as the nerve gas took effect. No matter how many times Shinji did that one, he still laughed at the idea of using nerve gas in NERV.

Why don't we just say that Shinji spent a lot of time expressing his feelings in a number of violent and fatal ways.

IIIIIIIIII

Shinji expertly popped the lock on the beer vending machine. Kensuke's home page was filled with a wealth of useful information and he was going to have to find a way to thank the boy someday.

IIIIIIIIII

Shinji bent the angel over one of the buildings and then activated the loudspeakers.

"You gotta real purdy mouth," Shinji's voice echoed through the empty streets, "I bet you could squeal reall good now."

"Uh . . ." Misato said over the radio. "What are you doing Shinji?"

"Squeal for me." Shinji ignored the woman. "Say 'WEEEE,' come on now squeal laike a stuk pig."

"Uh . . . Shinji . . ."

"I am the alpha male," Shinji called out while doing pelvic thrusts, "I am the alpha male."

Having been humiliated more then any reasonable being could ever be expected to endure, the angel promptly self destructed.

IIIIIIIIII

To Shinji's shock, he did not awake in an interrogation room . . . not that a straight jacket was much better. With a shrug, the boy calmly dislocated his right shoulder and slithered free. With the angel dead, it was time to go have some fun.

Shinji learned a lot during that first week of freedom. He learned where all the good liqueur stores were, he learned the location of Tokyo IIIs' high class brothel, he learned that there was a green leafy substance that could be smoked, and he learned enough about his father's security detail to stage a kidnapping.

IIIIIIIIII

Ritsuko fed the disk into the computer, then walked back to her seat and settled in. The commander had been missing for almost twelve hours and the staff was starting to get a bit worried . . . well, that's not exactly true since it would be better to say that the staff that hadn't chosen to go to the 'Bastard is Gone' party were starting to get a bit worried.

"Sit down Misato," Ritsuko growled.

"But there's a party and I'm missing it," Misato whined, "no one is missing it except us . . . even the sub-commander got to go."

"It's up to the two of us to find the Commander," Ritsuko said firmly, "we could be his only hope."

"But . . ."

"Sit."

The two women turned to the monitor to see Shinji's smiling face on the screen.

". . . less you give me twenty billion dollars in one yen coins then I will kill the Commander in a horribly painful fashion. You have twelve hours to comply." The camera panned to show an angry Gendo tied to a chair. "Just to show that I'm serious, I'm going to start cutting off appendages in ten hours and sending them to you until you decide to play along. And now a message from our sponsors."

"Don't give him anything," Gendo growled, "he doesn't have the guts to carry out his threat."

"Well," Misato said with a grin, "you heard the Commander. Let's go and . . ."

"Quiet," Ritsuko ordered, "now then. We have twelve hours to . . ." She cut off abruptly as a drunken tech stumbled into the room. "What is it?"

"We got bored of watching this and thought you'd like to watch this too because it's good to watch and all of us have already burned our own copies," he managed to say before passing out.

"That's Amish Jim," Misato whined, "he doesn't drink. We gotta go Rits, the party has to be amazing if he jumped off the wagon."

"Put in the disk," Ritsuko growled.

Once again Gendo came on the screen. This time a ball gag had been fitted into the mouth of the man least likely to win a father of the year award.

"Hello again," Shinji said with a grin, "it's been ten hours and you know what that means don't you?" He held up a pair of pruning sheers. "Snippy, snippy. Let's get to work then."

The next package contained a final disk along with a of full assortment of fingers, toes, and other assorted appendages. The final disk had just one short message from Gendo.

"I was wrong," the pale and shaking man moaned, "he did have the guts."

Shinji learned one more important thing before section two found him and what was left of his 'father.' He learned the numbers of Gendo's private bank accounts along with the locations of the men responsible for making his life a living hell. Flush with a new sense of purpose, Shinji went willingly to his death.

IIIIIIIIII

After close to five thousand resets, Shinji was ready to give up.

No matter how many times, he could never manage to get all of the SEELE bastards. One or two of the sons of bitches always managed to slither away to cause a bit of mischief.

'I can't do it alone and telling anyone about it just ends up with me in an I-love-Me jacket, although the drugs are nice,' he thought to himself, remembering the few times he'd tried to prove to someone what was going on for the hell of it.

IIIIIIIIII

Shinji ears ached from the approving roar of the crowd as he faced off against his opponent . . .

IIIIIIIIII

Shinji tried to keep the boredom off his face as they wheeled out Rei.

"Okay," Shinji agreed, "I'll pilot it. But first . . ."

Confused bridge techs tried to shut off the loud seventies era porno music that had suddenly started playing, when Shinji had whispered a command into a comm on the wall, over the intercom while Gendo stared in shock as his son jumped on Rei's gurney and began removing his clothing. Another quick gesture led to another painful interrogation and thus another reset.

Trisha's expression had been completely unreadable, mainly because she had seemed unable to hold a form for longer then half a second, before she had sent Shinji back that time.

IIIIIIIIII

Ritsuko answered the page and was unsurprised to find that her friend Misato was on the other side.

"About time," Ritsuko growled, "well?"

"I found the third child," Misato agreed, "but . . . well . . . maybe it would be best if you saw for yourself."

"How bad could it be?"

"I found him in a brothel," Misato blurted out, "drunk off his ass and under a pile of women. He's having trouble walking, there's no way in hell we're going to be able to use him to pilot an Eva."

"He's going to have to," Ritsuko sighed, "bring him in."

"About that," Misato said nervously, "I still haven't quite got the layout of this place down yet and . . ."

"Where are you?"

The two women carried the blitzed boy into the Eva bay. To Gendo's extreme disappointment, the child was in no shape to understand the cutting remarks Gendo had ready to shatter the boy's already low self esteem. Damn! He had spent the last ten years thinking those up!

"What should we do now?" Misato asked, pushing away one of Shinji's hands from her breasts as he made honking noises.

"Just load him in the tube," Ritsuko ordered, "we can flood the LCL with stimulants."

"But won't that make his hangover ten times worse tomorrow?" Misato said as they stuffed the boy in.

"What's your point?"

"No breast honking for you, you flat-chested bad dye-job," Shinji slurred, before passing out once more.

IIIIIIIIII

Shinji awoke with a start wondering where the hell he was. As his vision returned, he became aware of the fact that he was in an Eva and that there was an angel outside. Well, he knew how to handle that sort of thing. 'I think Asuka's wake up call number 5 should do the trick.'

The bridge crew watched in shock as the drunken boy bitch slapped the angel and proceeded to show the apocalyptic being who its daddy was.

"He's a natural," Misato said in satisfaction, "or maybe he's one of those people that drive better when they're drunk, like me."

"This shouldn't be possible," Ritsuko muttered. "It's like he's a veteran pilot rather then an untrained boy."

"Yeah," Misato agreed, "it's like he's piloted an Eva and killed angels before . . . but that's not possible right?"

"Uh . . . right," Ritsuko agreed.

The angel was destroyed and the recovery team found Shinji happily sleeping off his binge. They took him to the infirmary and dumped him in one of the unused beds while their superiors debated the third's living arrangements.

IIIIIIIIII

Gendo did his best to summon up his inner bastard as he prepared to share his news with the rest of the senior staff.

"One of you three is going to have to supervise the third child," Gendo said coldly. This doesn't effect the scenario, Gendo thought to himself, his drunkenness and whoremongering were both major character flaws that could be exploited.

"I think Misato would be the best choice," Ritsuko said quickly, not wanting to have to take care of a teenage drunk or have her assistant Maya subjected to him.

"I agree," Fuyutsuki agreed. Eager to dodge that bullet. "Major Katsuragi would be a perfect guardian."

"But he's always talking about beer and hookers," Misato protested. "You didn't have to listen to him on the drive here . . . not to mention the fact that I found him drunk off his ass in a brothel so I know he isn't just all talk."

"Well," Fuyutsuki said quickly, "you like beer."

"And you're so slutty that you may as well be a hooker," Ritsuko added, "you're perfect for each other." OK, maybe she was a little jealous that Shinji had dismissed her breasts as insignificant and insulted her dye-job. 'Just because I don't have udders...'

"That's a pretty bad accusation coming from ol'gang bang Ritsu," Misato retorted, "least I never had a line at my door."

"Least I never took more then two at once," Ritsuko shot back, "not like you little Miss air tight."

"You bitch ..." Misato growled, remembering the event in question and whose chemistry experiment had caused it all. 'The next LSD my ass!'

"Ladies please," Gendo regained control of the meeting, making a mental note to get a VD test and to avoid ol'gang bang Akagi in the future.

"Major Katsuragi will take the third child and Doctor Akagi will move into the apartment next door to provide on call support."

And it'll give him an excuse to get the bottle blond away while he waited for the results of the aforementioned test.

"Any questions?"

He looked around the table with an expression that promised pain for anyone foolish enough to say anything. "Good, dismissed."

IIIIIIIIII

Shinji did his best to ignore the teacher. All he wanted to do was put his head on his desk, wait for the room to stop spinning, and to pray for death or the end of his headache.

"Are you the . . ."

"One more word and I'll crack your skull," Shinji growled. He didn't care how useful the boy's website was, the boy needed to learn not to have an annoying high pitched voice around people with Hangovers.

Kensuke nodded fearfully before stumbling back to Toji.

"Well?" the other boy demanded.

"He told me to shut up before I could ask him," Kensuke replied, "what should we do?"

"You should cease and desist your inquiry," Rei said in a dull tone, "NERV cannot confirm or deny that pilot Ikari is or is not the pilot of Unit one."

"Thanks Ayanami," Kensuke said in shock, "you're a big help."

"I do not know what you mean," Rei said tonelessly, but with a hint of vindictiveness in her eyes.

IIIIIIIIII

True to form, Toji found Shinji after class and began ranting about his sister. Let's just say that Shinji was not amused.

Shinji looked at the boy with bloodshot eyes, he remembered the bastard . . . Tacky or something. Now, all he needed to do was explain to Tacky why it was polite to use his indoor voice around people with

severe hangovers.

Checking his pockets, he discovered he still had a fifth of vodka and a handkerchief, as well as a bag of a green leafy substance and a lighter.

Watching Tacky run around screaming was a bit of a bother, but Shinji was sure he'd quiet down quicker this way. 'Should I have gotten him stoned? Nah, Molatov Cocktails solve problems, weed just delays them.'

"Stop drop and roll Toji," Kensuke said softly. Military Otaku, yes. Total idiot, no.

With a shrug, Shinji turned and walked away. If he remembered correctly, there was a place to buy Absinthe somewhere around . . . .

IIIIIIIIII

Toru had been a bartender for almost fifty years and in that time he'd thought he'd seen it all. He'd even seen a purple haired woman get into a drinking contest with a penguin, and lose. What he'd never seen was an adolescent boy wander in, drink enough absinthe to kill a platoon of marines, and then stumble out under his own power.

After a series of wacky side trips, Shinji eventually made his way back to Misato's apartment. Before going to bed, he became uncomfortably aware of the pressure in his bladder.

"Now wer's dat to'let?" Shinji muttered to himself.

IIIIIIIIII

Misato awoke to a very angry penguin, a very wet and angry penguin.

"WARK, WARK WARK WARK, WARK WARK."

"Pen Pen?" Misato groaned, her nose twitched as it took in the smell. "Did you wet the fridge again? God, ever since Shinji started living with us."

Pen Pen's glare deepened.

"Well I'm not cleaning it up this time," the woman said stubbornly, "you can damn well do it yourself."

"Wark," Pen Pen sighed.

IIIIIIIIII

Shinji was rudely awakened my Misato at the crack of noon the next day.

"Get up you drunk," Misato screamed, "angel attack."

"Just let me drain the ol' lizard first," Shinji mumbled.

"No time," Misato yelled. She hustled the boy into her car and drove to the nearest access point. Ritsuko met them in front of the Eva cage.

"Here's the situation," tiny tits briefed them, "the UN has detected..."

Shinji tuned the woman out and walked to the edge of the walkway, wasn't like she had anything important to say.

"Now get in the Eva and..."

"In a minute." The boy unzipped "Aaaaahhhhrg," Shinji groaned as he loudly relieved himself into the LCL.

"Damn it," Ritsuko screamed, "stop doing that!"

It was going to take weeks to filter the contaminants out. "I swim in that stuff!"

After much yelling and a bit of cajoling, might have been a few bribes and threats also come to think about it. Shinji was loaded into his Eva and launched to meet the threat of the oncoming Angel.

"Where is it?" Shinji asked.

"Where's what?" Misato's voice replied.

"The Angel."

"It's right in front of you."

"Behind the giant dildo?" Shinji tried to look behind the obscene object.

"That's not a giant dildo," Misato shouted, "it's the angel."

"Are you sure?" Shinji demanded. "Cause it really looks like one of yours."

"How would you know . . . er . . . I mean . . ."

"And it's almost big enough to be one of the flat chested wonder's," Shinji continued cheerfully.

"Just kill it," Misato demanded.

"Shouldn't we make sure that . . ."

"NOW."

"Fine," Shinji agreed with a sigh, "but don't blame me if she gets even bitchier cause I killed her favorite toy."

He began approaching the angel.

Before he had a chance to dispatch the creature, Misato pitched in with new instructions, talking loudly to be heard over some commotion in the background.

"Try to lead the angel away from the east section of town," Misato ordered.

"Why?" Shinji asked.

"Because that's where your father's convoy is," Misato replied, "we just need to buy him five minutes to get to the safety of the geofront."

"Right," Shinji agreed. The boy turned the Eva and sprinted to the east section of town.

IIIIIIIIII

Shinji was hustled off to a meeting with Misato the moment he got out of his Eva.

"Just what in the hell do you think you were doing out there?" Misato screeched.

"Leading the angel to the east sector of town like you told me to do," Shinji replied cheerfully.

"I told you to lead it away from the east sector," Misato growled.

"Damn communications glitches," Shinji giggled.

"Your father could have been killed," Misato said in exasperation.

"So he wasn't?" Shinji was profoundly disappointed. On the other hand, that meant that he could kill the bastard again.

"He's in the ICU," the woman said gently, "we're still not sure if it was the Eva or the angel that stepped on his vehicle."

"Oh." Like hell, Shinji thought to himself, it wasn't the angel that was stomping on every car in sight. "How bad are his injuries?"

"Looks like he's going to lose both legs and at least one of his arms," Misato replied. She didn't like being so graphic but if it caused the boy to be more careful in the future . . .

"Oh." Shinji had to really work to keep the smile off his face. "May I see his medical file?"

"I think it would be best if you didn't."

"I understand..." 'That I have to use your access card to read it,' Shinji finished the thought silently.

Sometimes it was nice, living with a drunken slob.

"Good," Misato sighed, "I'm glad you're taking this seriously."

"Now let's go get loaded," Shinji said cheerfully.

"What?"

"You deaf or something?" Shinji asked with mock concern. "I said that we should go out and have a drink or five to celebrate."

"I'm not gonna go out drinking with you," Misato replied, "in fact . . ."

"More for me," Shinji interrupted, "later."

"Wait," Misato called out to the retreating boy, "come back here."

IIIIIIIIII

Shinji found himself at his father's bedside. It hadn't been intentional, even after all the time he'd spent at NERV he still lost his way on occasion.

An evil grin appeared on his face as he read the man's medical file.

It didn't look like there was any chance that Gendo would be giving Shinji any brothers or sisters in this reset. The bottle blond would be so disappointed when she found out that Gendo was no longer fully 'functional.'

A frown appeared on Shinji's face as he looked over the treatment plan the doctors had prescribed, this wouldn't do . . . not at all.

Several of the previous resets had allowed Shinji to develop passable skills in forgery. His good deed for the day done, Shinji wondered off to find that bar he'd been thinking about earlier.

IIIIIIIIII

Shortly after Shinji left the room, two Doctors came in to take a look at Gendo's condition.

"Are you sure it's a good idea Doctor McCoy?" the intern asked nervously.

"What does the order say?" Doctor McCoy demanded.

"It says that we are to remove two thirds of his intestines, surviving extremities, that we are to wire his jaw shut, and that he is to be taken off morphine and all other pain medication. But . . ."

"And is that or is that not in my hand writing?" the Doctor interrupted.

"It is sir but . . ."

"But while I don't remember ordering those procedures, I'm sure that I had a good reason at the time."

"But what if it's a forgery sir?"

"Damn it Jim, I'm a Doctor not a expert on handwriting analysis."

"Sorry sir," Jim said contritely.

"I'm not sure why, but it felt really good when you apologized . . . odd that."

IIIIIIIIII

Chaos would have been a mild term for the NERV operations center. They'd detected another angel attack, they'd sounded the alert, what they hadn't done was launch the pilots, and the reason for that was . . .

"What do you mean we can't find the third child?" Misato demanded. "And how can you loose an EVA?"

"Security tapes show the third child climbing into it and launching it ma'am," one of the Section Two agents said helpfully, "so it's likely that when we find one, we'll find the other."

"How did a fourteen year old boy, probably drunk off his ass, in a machine the size of a building, manage to sneak past security?" Misato demanded.

"He discovered a hole in our security, mam."

"That must be some hole," she growled.

"Coverage is practically nonexistent between 0600 and 0630. It's a scheduling conflict that we haven't been able to solve so far."

-Flashback-

"Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?" the TV in the Section Two lounge blared.

"Sponge Bob Square Pants!" came the answering chant from the massed agents.

-End Flashback-

"Get out of my operations center," Misato said in a low dangerous voice.

"I think I've found his trail ma'am," one of the techs called out.

"Did someone sight the Eva?" Misato asked.

"No ma'am," the tech replied, "someone broke into a distillery and made off with several thousand gallons of pure grain alcohol."

"How far is it from . . ."

"Sensors picking up Unit One," another tech interjected, "he's approaching the angel."

"Onscreen."

IIIIIIIIII

Unit one swayed out of the way of the angel's beam attack and retaliated with a barrage of gunfire that destroyed two schools and an orphanage.

The bridge crew watched in shock as the Eva drunkenly stumbled closer and closer to the angel, destroying more and more of the city's infrastructure along the way.

The angel made one more desperate attack before Unit One was within arms reach and it was all over.

IIIIIIIIII

Misato stared at the vice commander in shock.

"Are you fucking nuts?" she demanded. "Why in the hell is Shinji accompanying me to go pick up the second child?"

"Whatever do you mean?" the old man managed to ask with a straight face. "Why wouldn't I want him somewhere else while I'm in charge?"

"You . . ."

"Look at it this way," the old man tried another tack, "the Navy's been dry for decades so . . ."

"Oh no," Misato said quickly, "I'm not going to be the one that has to endure a detoxing third child, especially not when I'm sober."

"How about I bend the no alcohol rule then?" he asked. "No is always a relative term after all and the rules do allow exceptions."

"Top shelf stuff?" Misato asked.

"I'll raid Gendo's private bar," he promised.

IIIIIIIIII

The world was shaking and it sounded as if he was sitting next to a jet engine when Shinji awoke. Needless to say that he was anything but happy when he realized where he was.

IIIIIIIIII

Asuka and her guardian were waiting on the deck to meet when the helicopter arrived.

"So that's the third child hmm?" Kaji mused. He'd heard a lot about NERV's only combat experienced pilot.

"He doesn't look so tough," Asuka sniffed. The girl was a bit jealous that her guardian was paying attention to someone that wasn't her.

"You've seen the footage of his fights."

"I could have done better," Asuka said with much less confidence then she'd intended.

"I'm sure," Kaji replied with an indulgent smile, "why don't you go say hi to him?"

"Fine." She stormed over to Shinji. "Play your cards right and I might be willing to show you how a real pilot . . ."

"Is this a come on?" Shinji stared at the girl through bloodshot eyes. "How much do you charge?"

"What?" Asuka asked in shock.

"Better not be much," Shinji continued, "I mean . . . I like redheads and everything but you're gonna have to have a real low price if you want me to overlook the fact that you're built like a fourteen year old boy."

Kaji's eyebrows shot up in shock, this was gonna be good.

IIIIIIIIII

Shinji tried to get along, really he did, but for some reason the redhead just couldn't understand the concept of shutting the hell up and not being such a bitch. Fuck it, the boy thought to himself, perhaps a bit of wall to wall counseling is in order.

"Hey Asuka," Shinji called out, "you wanna go inspect one of the cargo holds?"

"My thoughts exactly," Asuka said with a smirk. She was eager to show the damned third who the better pilot was.

'It's funny,' Shinji thought as he squared off with Asuka, 'she's go years of unarmed combat training, she's in better physical shape, she's got a mean streak a mile wide, and there's still not a chance in hell that she'll win this fight.'

"Ready?" Shinji asked cheerfully.

"To put you in your place," Asuka agreed.

The girl started things off with a text book jab to Shinji's face and the boy's head rocked back as his nose broke.

"I . . ." Asuka's eyes widened in shock at the blood.

Shinji just smiled.

IIIIIIIIII

Misato saw Shinji a few minutes later. The boy had a black eye and blood was dripping out his nose.

"What in the hell happened to you?" Misato demanded.

"Asuka and I were just having a little discussion about what the pecking order would be," Shinji explained cheerfully. "I think I persuaded her to come around to my way of thinking."

Misato's eyes widened as she realized what he meant. "But she's had years of combat training, how did you . . ." her voice trailed off as she considered the perverted lush she lived with.

IIIIIIIIII

Back in the ships' hold, two of her crewmen were discussing the results of Shinji's little tussle with Asuka.

"So," one of the crewmen began, "how do you think he managed to tape her to the ceiling?"

"MMMMPH," Asuka tried to scream through her gag, worried about how much hair and skin she was going to lose when they peeled all the duct tape off her naked body.

The crewmen got the trembling redhead down and wrapped a blanket around her to ward off the cold.

"Yer boss wants a word with yeh," one of the crewmen explained as they led the girl to Misato.

"What in the hell happened?" Misato demanded, having known from the pilots' files that a violent confrontation between the two was inevitable, but baffled by the outcome. "You should have won that fight easily. Shinji's has no combat training at all."

"I . . . he wouldn't stay down," the redhead replied, "I broke his nose and he smiled. I'm pretty sure I felt one of his ribs give out and he didn't even blink."

The two looked over at where Shinji was currently using Asuka's Eva Unit Two, one of the ship's radio antennas, and Kaji to try and lure the angel to the surface.

"What kind of monster is he?" the German pilot demanded.

Misato's answer was lost in the deafening roar of the angel, as it leapt from the water, jaws wide, attempting to swallow Kaji and the briefcase he had handcuffed to his left wrist.

Unit 02 simply twitched the antenna to the side and launched a prong knife into the angel's core.

"Whoa!"

"I thought the battles with those monsters were huge things causing massive amounts of damage?" a crewman questioned, as the angel's lifeless body sank into the depth of the ocean.

"That's because most of them are fought on land inside the city," Misato answered, "in the water there isn't that much to destroy."

'Which is probably why he simply killed it rather than playing with it,' she finished silently.

Everyone watched as Shinji continued using the water logged man as bait to lure some sharks in close, so he could feed them to the Eva like they were fish sticks.

IIIIIIIIII

Misato stormed into the vice commander's office the minute she got back to the Geofront.

"You were supposed to supply us with booze," Misato shrieked.

"You know how bureaucracy is," the vice commander said with a shrug, "it'll get there eventually."

"It was supposed to arrive before we did," Misato growled.

"How long have you been in the military again?"

"Do you know how hard Shinji is to deal with when he's dry?" Misato demanded. "Do you know how hard it is to take when I'm dry?"

"Where is Shinji now?"

"How the hell am I supposed to know?" Misato asked. "Little drunk is probably in a low class whore house or something."

IIIIIIIIII

In fact, Shinji was not in a low class whore house . . . or any type of whore house at all. What he was doing was paying his 'father' a visit.

Shinji frowned down at his father, he didn't remember ordering breast implants. On the other hand, he scratched his chin in thought, there were a lot of blank spots in his memory. Maybe he did.

"Fuck it," Shinji muttered to himself, "maybe the old man ordered it himself . . . be a shame not to help things along a bit." A smile bloomed on the boy's face as he wrote a few more suggestions on his father's chart. "And that is that."

Rei Ayanami stopped by later, as she believed her role as 'dutiful pilot' required stopping by at least once a day to monitor the commander's condition, and noticed the changes someone had made to his chart. Checking the hand writing she noted the likely possibility that the changes were made by Shinji.

Deciding that since Shinji was the sole remaining relative to the commander, and was the one most likely to know his wishes, Shinji's decisions were the correct ones to follow, besides the way he stared at her naked body when she was floating in the tube was frankly more than a little disturbing.

She made a mental note to see about the possibility of transferring the commander into one of the soulless clone bodies of his wife, preferably one of the ones he'd 'played' with.

He had stated a wish to be reunited with his wife and apparently wished to become female, this was clearly the next logical step.

IIIIIIIIII

Asuka stared dumbly at her guardian for a few moments before she processed the man's statement.

"WHAT?!" Asuka screamed. "Why the hell do I have to stay with him?"

"I'm flying back to Germany so Misato's going to be your new guardian," Kaji replied with a strained smile.

There was no way he was going to stay on the same continent as 'The Fisherman' as the sailors had nicknamed Shinji. "Have fun."

"But . . . him," Asuka protested weakly.

"Good luck with that," Kaji said over his shoulder. It hadn't been easy to get tickets for the first flight back, but he'd pulled a few strings.

"Kaaaajiiiiii," Asuka whined. "Damn it." She wasn't nearly as unhappy to be sharing quarters with the third child as she pretended to be, there was just something about Shinji's forceful personality that really appealed to Asuka's baser instincts and it was nice to smell a man wearing something other than Old Spice for once in her life.

IIIIIIIIII

Misato was in her element, she was in tactical command, an angel was approaching, and the might of humanity was about to be unleashed.

"Get Shinji and prepare to launch Eva Unit One," Misato ordered.

"No can do ma'am," one of the techs sighed, "afraid the third child has been arrested and . . ."

"Then have Section Two go get him," Misato growled. What had the dirty little drunk done now?

"And he promptly escaped," the tech continued, "the police report that he mentioned something about making his living in the Los Angeles underground as a solder of fortune."

"Do we know where he is now?"

"High speed chase in a stolen police cruiser ma'am."

"Send Asuka and Rei then," Misato ordered. She tried to resist asking, really she did, but she had to know in the end. "What was he charged with?"

"Public urination, destruction of property, grand theft auto, manufacturing and detonating an explosive device within city limits, solicitation, trespassing, jaywalking, public drunkenness, minor in possession, assault with intent, vagrancy, indecent exposure, contributing to the delinquency of a . . ."

"We get the picture," Misato interrupted, "tell the local PD to back off and have Section Two pick him up when he tires himself out."

IIIIIIIIII

Shinji was driving down the road in a stolen police car at twice the speed limit with the wind in his hair and a fifth of cheap scotch in his gut.

"Bwahahahaha," he laughed, "you'll never take me alive."

He glanced down at the on board GPS, 'this seemed like a good stopping point,' Shinji thought to himself. His eyes darted over to the fuel gauge confirming that yes, he had just enough gasoline to make things work.

The men in the convoy of police cars watched in shock as the boy they were pursuing made a text book bootlegger's turn and sped by in the adjoining lane.

Also watching was a stunned reporter in the overhead channel six news copter.

"Please tell me you got that," Trisha begged.

"I got it," the camera man said with a grin, "who is that guy anyway?"

"I don't know, but he's got one hell of a pair of balls on him," the reporter said admiringly, unconsciously licking her lips.

IIIIIIIIII

To sum things up, Misato was not happy with the performance of her two sober and non felonious pilots.

"You mind telling me just what the hell happened out there?" Misato growled.

"It's all wonder girl's fault," Asuka whined, "why couldn't you have paired me with Shinji?"

"I . . ." Misato's eyes bulged when she processed the redhead's statement. "He's busy committing crimes and getting drunk."

Her smile grew. "Maybe that's what we should have you two doing, it certainly works for . . ."

"Ahem," Fuyutsuki coughed.

"Right," Misato said in a subdued tone, "the plan is for you two to start synchronized dancing so you learn to act as a team."

"Ma'am," one of the bridge bunnies called out.

"What is it?"

"Well, the angel is helpless right now, right?"

"Uh huh."

"And we need to destroy both cores at once, right?"

"Yeah."

"Why don't we just have Shinji drag the two cores next to each other and stab them at the same time while they are too injured to fight back?"

"I . . ."

"Does this mean we will not be required to train together?" Rei asked in her standard monotone, but with an unnoticed gleam of hope in her eyes.

IIIIIIIIII

Shinji giggled as his vehicle sped closer and closer to the edge of the cliff.

This was gonna be so cool, just like in that chick flick he hated and the girls had forced him to watch once. It was the only good scene in the whole movie.

His giggling cut off abruptly when the fuel starved engine sputtered and his car rolled to a stop just inches from his date with destiny.

"Ah well," Shinji sighed, "guess there's always next time."

He stepped out of the car and began nonchalantly walking towards the nearest town.

"Wonder if they have any good places to eat?" he mused.

IIIIIIIIII

Policemen swarmed around the abandoned car, each one hoping to be the one to find the crucial piece of evidence that would identify the perp and bestow pay raises to the discoverer.

Their hearts sunk when the chief's helicopter landed and disgorged the Chief along with several of his pet officers.

"What's the hold up?" the Chief demanded. "Why haven't you incompetents found the damned criminal yet?"

"Sir, we . . ."

"None of your excuses," he spat, "my aide is taking command, effective immediately!"

"Yes, sir."

"But, sir . . ."

"No buts," the Chief growled.

"Sir, if you'll just look . . ."

"And no excused either," the Chief continued, "I am going to speak and you are going to listen with your mouth shut. Do you understand or do I have to relieve you and find someone who does?"

"I understand, sir," the Lieutenant said reluctantly.

"And another thing, you and your men . . ." the Chief cut off when he noticed that the man's attention was no longer focused on his lecture. "What is it?"

Wordlessly, the man just pointed at the Chief's helicopter which had just taken off and was rapidly gaining altitude.

"Somebody just stole my helicopter?" the Chief mumbled in astonishment.

"Hit the deck," one of the other officers screamed as Shinji rewrote the book on what it was possible to do in a helicopter.

IIIIIIIIII

Rei was a very unhappy clone. She had been dressed in an outfit that even she thought was horrid, she had been forced to share close contact with Asuka who had a rather abrasive personality, and to top it all off . . .

"No no no," Rei said barely keeping her monotone while somehow conveying exasperation, "it's step heel, pivot, heel, step, sashay. Not, step, step, pivot, heel, step, heel, sashay."

"Huh?" Asuka asked dumbly.

"And sway your hips," Rei added, "even if you do have the body of a twelve year old boy your hips are presumably feminine so it is theoretically possible for you to do this."

"What?" Asuka growled. "Are you trying to pick a fight?"

"I am trying to teach an untalented brick how to dance," Rei snapped flatly, "let's take it from the top." She couldn't work under these conditions.

IIIIIIIIII

The reporters watched with jaws dropped as the most wanted boy in Japan nonchalantly strolled through the crowd of newly arrived Police Officers and appropriated their helicopter.

"Tell me you got that," she begged.

"Oh yeah," the camera man agreed.

"Then follow that chopper," she ordered.

The pilot tried to keep up, but was rapidly falling behind despite all the wild maneuvers the other pilot was wasting time on.

"Why are we falling behind?" Trisha demanded.

"He's got a better engine, better speed, better altitude, better . . . better pilot." The News Pilot was reluctant to admit that last bit.

In his defense, no sane man would do a barrel roll at tree top level . . . hell, most insane men wouldn't have tried it.

Despite the Pilot's pessimistic assessment, they managed to keep the police helicopter in sight until the maniac behind the stick lost them by flying into a commuter tunnel.

"My god," the pilot gasped, "he's not human."

"The man is a god," the cameraman agreed.

IIIIIIIIII

Kensuke Aida was having the worst day of his life.

The teacher was droning, the girls were wearing long skirts, after the rumor had gotten out that Shinji liked long skirts the female population had quickly changed styles, and it had been the most disappointing Eva battle ever.

'I mean, what kind of clowns did they have driving those things? It would have been a hundred times better, and more destructive, if Shinji had been piloting,' he thought to himself.

Little did he know, that he was about to see the coolest thing ever.

The military mad otaku glanced out the window and his eyes became glued to the scene outside.

"Hey class rep," the boy said calmly.

"What is it, Aida."

"Are you seeing what I'm seeing?"

"I don't know," the girl replied, "did you just see Ikari jump out of a moving helicopter in mid barrel roll, narrowly avoid the rotors, and deploy a parachute?"

"Yeah," the boy agreed, "I was afraid that the pills I found on Ikari's desk were making me see things again."

"Why in the hell would you ingest anything you found on Ikari's desk?" Hikari demanded. "Are you nuts?"

"I was hoping it would make me as manly as he is," Kensuke replied, "but all it did was turn everybody into lizard people that wanted to eat my scrotum."

"Oh." Which neatly explained why the boy had been cowering under his desk and urinating on himself the day before. "Kensuke, there's nothing you can do to make yourself even a fraction as manly as Ikari is," she explained gently. Someone had to tell him, and as the class rep it was her duty to crush the dreams of her classmates.

They watched as Shinji crashed through the window and released his chute. In the background, the pilotless helicopter completed another barrel roll before crashing into a building, causing untold millions in damage.

"I guess not," the boy agreed mournfully.

"Now where did I leave that," Shinji mumbled to himself as he shoved the teacher out of the way and began going through the man's desk, "here it is."

He came up with a bottle of mysterious and presumably alcoholic liquid. "And now I can start my day."

The boy returned to his desk, chugged half the bottle, and dozed off.

"Damn but he's manly," Hikari sighed.

"Yeah," Kensuke sighed, "I mean . . . er . . . in a non homoerotic way of course."

IIIIIIIIII

The Chief was turning redder and redder as the two Section Two agents explained the facts of life.

"So this scum bag steals my helicopter and I can't even write him a damned ticket?" he bellowed.

"That is correct," the Man in Black agreed.

"What in the hell . . . wait, does that mean that he was one of you guys?"

"He is an employee of NERV," one of the agents agreed cautiously.

"Well, I guess that's alright then."

"Huh?"

"No shame in being beaten by some hot shot secret agent," the Chief said happily, "no shame at all."

"How would you feel if we told you it was a teenaged boy?"

"Depends," the Chief replied, "is it the one that pilots giant robots and destroys Tokyo III on a weekly basis?"

Both agents just stared at the man in shock, horrified that at the massive and blatant security breach.

The Chief laughed. "Damn, wait till the boys hear about this. No shame in losing to him either."

"That's . . . er . . . how'd you know about him?"

"The boys like to monitor the website," the Chief said absently, "thank you for your time boys."

The two Section Two agents watched the Chief turn and walk away. After a few moments of silence, one of them turned to the other.

"Website?"

"Not our problem," the second agent replied, "wanna go get some doughnuts?" Proving that cops are cops no mater how secretive their organization.

IIIIIIIIII

Asuka and Rei got to school late that day after a night spent doing one humiliating synchronized thing after another. Supposedly this was to increase their teamwork so that they'd be able to defeat the angel in the event that Shinji's bender prevented their star pilot from taking care of the creature himself.

Privately, both girls harbored the thought that it was all for the amusement of their superior officer. Misato's constant giggling certainly pointed in that direction, but then her behavior had never been what anyone would have considered professional, so there was an outside chance that this actually was necessary training.

"Shinji came?" Asuka squeaked. She needed to fix her hair, put on some makeup, change her outfit, oh god.

"Looks like you need a bit of help," Hikari said slyly. "Wouldn't want to look anything but your best for when Shinji wakes up would you."

"What do you want in trade?" Asuka demanded.

"You live with him don't you?" Hikari asked eagerly. "Tell us what it's like."

The girls all clustered around Asuka to get the inside track on their favorite classmate.

Two of the boys watched the congregation of girls gather around Asuka's desk.

"What do you think they're talking about?" one of the boys asked.

A cascade of giggling caused the two boys to look over at the group.

One of the girls held her hands up about six inches apart prompting a smug looking Asuka to hold up her own hands and considerably widen the distance, this caused the rest of the girls' eyes to glaze over while trickles of drool escaped the corners of their mouths.

"I dunno, chocolate?"

"Some sort of food anyway," the first boy agreed.

"I think you are right. I think I just heard one of them mention something about sausage," chimed in a third boy.

IIIIIIIIII

Asuka was furious. She'd been looking forward to her class trip to Okinawa for days only to be told that she wasn't permitted to go.

"This isn't fair," Asuka squealed.

"Life isn't fair," Misato replied.

"But . . . but I wanna go to Okinawa," Asuka whined, "why do I have to stay here and be on the lookout for those stupid angels."

"Because you and Rei are our only reliable pilots," Misato replied in another voice.

"Are you saying that Shinji isn't reliable?"

"I'm saying that it's possible that Shinji has stolen a jet and flown to Monte Carlo for the weekend," Misato admitted, "and that you and Rei are much easier to control."

Shinji choose that moment to walk into the apartment. Causing Asuka to lower her voice in deference to his perpetual hangover and distracting her from her rant.

IIIIIIIIII

Luckily for Asuka's vacation plans, the Angel on the tropical island choose that moment to make itself knows to the 'sophisticated' NERV sensors.

IIIIIIIIII

Misato pulled her vibrating phone out of a rather personal place and checked her latest text message.

"Looks like it's your lucky day Asuka," Misato said blandly, "the next angel attack is on a tropical island and if we get things resolved quickly enough . . ."

"We get to spend some time in the resort," Asuka squealed. Her eyes widened in horror. "Sorry, Shinji."

"As drunk as he is, I doubt he'd hear a bomb drop," Misato assured the worried girl.

IIIIIIIIII

Pen Pen walked down the isle of the local home improvement store until he reached the locksmithing section.

"Wark."

"May I help you, sir?" the sales girl asked.

"Wark wark."

"I'm afraid we don't have any locks that can be attached to freezer doors that make it impossible to open them from the outside without a key while still making it possible to open them from the inside without a key."

"Wa . . . wark," Pen Pen said in defeat.

"But if price is no object, then why don't you take a look at our spacious line of walk in freezers."

"Wark?" Pen Pen asked hopefully.

"I don't see why we couldn't install a furo."

IIIIIIIIII

"Shinji's the one that has experience fishing," Asuka pointed out.

"We'd have to get his bait flown in from Germany," Misato noted, "and I'm not sure we have enough time to waste."

"There are two ways to go fishing," Shinji explained, "you can use conventional equipment, like I did when we went to pick up Asuka."

His grin widened. "Or you can do it the fun way."

"The fun way?" Misato's eyes widened in Horror when she realized that what she'd said could be construed as a request to find out what Shinji meant. "Shinji wai . . ."

"Dupont spinner." EVA Unit One dropped a couple large objects into the volcano.

"HIT THE DECK," Misato screamed.

"Or in this case..." EVA Unit One calmly walked away from the volcano.

BOOOOOOOOM

"An N2 spinner."

Lava spewed out of the volcano and poured down the side of the mountain and towards the sea.

"At least he didn't cause much property damage that time," Misato tried to console herself.

"Isn't there a town in the path of that lava, major?"

"Damn it, why can't he keep the collateral damage down for once?" Misato sobbed. "Just one damned time."

IIIIIIIIII

Rei walked up to Shinji's desk and, to the amazement of her classmates, poked the sleeping child with a stick.

"What is it?" Shinji growled.

"There is a power outage and an angel has just been sighted," Rei explained.

"So?"

"So I will trade you a case of twenty year old scotch if you lead us through the corridors of NERV to our Evas and aid us in the destruction of the angel."

"It's gonna take more then a case for me to do that," Shini countered, "how about a case of scotch and I forget you woke me up?"

"How much will it take for you to aid us in this endeavor?" Rei asked in a monotone.

"Twenty five cases."

"That is not possible," Rei said flatly, "there are only twenty cases in the NERV inventory."

"Then I guess you're outta luck then."

"There are however several other types of spirits," Rei continued. "How about twenty cases of scotch, five of bourbon, three of gin, and two of Soju?"

"Deal," Shinji agreed.

AN: Was going to post this as one big mega chapter, decided not to for now and I wanted to get something up on the second anyway since this fic was inspired by a great movie. As always a lot of thanks should be heaped on dogbertcarroll for the massive amounts of improvement he applied to my first draft.


	2. We'll Meet Again

Disclaimer: Take that, Maynard G. Krebs!

We'll Meet Again

Shinji led the two girls through the bowels of NERV towards their EVAs with one thought on his mind.

'That scotch is gonna be so good,' the boy thought to himself, 'I can't wait to drink it.'

"Nother beer vending machine," Shinji called out to the girls, "beer break."

"Why are there so many beer vending machines in NERV's access tunnels?" Asuka whispered to Rei, wondering is she could get away with having one herself, despite the bottled blond scientist's threats that she could detect the slightest presence of alcohol in her system while in the entry plug and what she'd do to her if she detected any.

"Due to a safety requirement put into place shortly after the third child arrived," Rei replied.

"Oh," Asuka replied, wondering what the story was behind that answer and deciding that she'd simply ask Misato later.

Shinji was just about to pop open his beer and take a sip when a strange man bumped into him and caused him to drop his beer. The boy screamed in horror as the can fell to the ground and gushed its life's blood onto the cold unforgiving ground, mortally wounded.

"You are not an employee of this branch of NERV," Rei said in a monotone.

"And you three are commin' wid me," the saboteur replied with a cocky grin.

"My poor baby," Shinji said mournfully, "you never even had a chance."

"Focus ya lidd'l bastard," the saboteur ordered, "and quit whinin' bout yer stupid beer."

"Stupid beer?" Shinji growled.

Rei quickly pulled a rolled up plastic poncho from her pocket and donned it.

"What's with the rain coat?" Asuka asked.

"I dislike cleaning blood out of my school uniform."

IIIIIIIIII

The bridge crew all looked up in shock when two of the pilots entered the command center.

"How'd you two get down here so fast?" Misato asked.

"Pilot Ikari escorted us to a familiar section of the Geofront," Rei explained.

"If he brought you down here, then why isn't he with you?"

"Pilot Ikari is taking care of the angel," Rei said in a monotone.

"He said he needed to work off some aggression and that what he did to the saboteur wasn't enough to calm him down," Asuka added.

"Speaking of the Saboteur," Ritsuko interjected, "did you find the part he stole?"

"Yes," said Rei, as Asuka paled.

"Well, where is it?"

"Pilot Ikari proceeded to beat the intruder with it before shoving it up the man's anal cavity."

"... Maya?" asked Ritsuko. "Could you be a dear and get that for me?"

*Thump.*

"Oh, bother."

"Thanks for letting me use you as a blood shield," Asuka said gratefully to Rei. "I wasn't prepared for something like that."

"It's not a problem. Once Shinji has dealt with the angel and the current crisis is over, I'll take you to Nerv supply so you can get your own 'dealing with Shinji' female newcomer pack. It contains three disposable ponchos, a small bottle of scotch, and half a dozen condoms."

"Condoms?" Asuka asked intently.

"Yes, condoms. So far they have not been needed, but the supply officer is hopeful and insists we carry them. She herself also carries a small bottle of baby oil with her at all times, but that isn't covered by Nerv."

"Do you have a bottle of baby oil on you?" Asuka asked curiously.

"It's a pilot's duty to be prepared for all possible situations," Rei admitted. There was a faint blush on the albino's cheeks that would have been missed by all but the most observant observer.

IIIIIIIIII

Things were quiet at NERV for the next couple of weeks aside from one incident involving Shinji and a member of the local Motorcycle club.

Shinji blindsided the burly biker with a length of rebar and snatched up the man's keys.

"Later, chumps!" the boy called over his shoulder as he sped away into the night.

"Did Shinji just carjack a biker?"

"Is it still called carjacking when you steal a motorcycle?" another girl asked.

IIIIIIIIII

Ritsuko resisted the urge to yank out her hair when she read the shipping manifest.

"Who's the joker that ordered a set of EVA sized golf clubs?" she demanded.

"They're here?" Shinji groaned. The last thing he remembered was challenging that group of brewery workers to a drinking contest in Sendai.

"You ordered these?" Ritsuko asked. "What were you . . ." she froze as she realized what she had almost done.

No way in hell was she going to provoke the drunken little sadist, not after what the autopsy she'd performed on the saboteur had shown, she hadn't seen a beating that savage since someone had told Rei that her plugsuit made her ass look fat while she was on her period.

"Have fun with them," she said weakly.

IIIIIIIIII

Gendo awoke with a start, something was terribly wrong. He felt no pain and could no longer feel his injuries, but the world seemed . . . off.

He blew a lock of blue hair out of his eyes . . . wait, since when did he have blue hair? Nervously, Gendo reached down to give himself a quick 'hands on' inspection and was more then a bit surprised to find bits missing that should have been there and protrusions on his chest that he was fairly sure hadn't been there before.

A girlish scream echoed through the halls of the NERV medical wing.

IIIIIIIIII

Misato stumbled into work four hours late with a massive hangover. Still, she was just in time for the excitement . . .

"Pattern blue detected," one of the bridge bunnies called out.

"Where is it?" Misato asked. She winced at the alarms but forced the pain away.

"Orbit, ma'am." The bridge bunny frowned. "Never mind, ma'am. Pattern blue is gone."

"What do you mean gone?" Misato asked dumbly.

"I'm detecting a powerful multi gigaton explosion where the pattern blue used to be," the bridge bunny explained, "something must have destroyed the angel."

"Sensors confirm that an object the size and shape of an N2 mine left Tokyo III on a ballistic trajectory that intersected with the pattern blue," Maya added helpfully.

"Do we have a visual of the launch site?"

"Coming on screen now, ma'am."

"Is that . . ."

"Unit One," Ritsuko confirmed.

"What's he doing?"

Unit One swung the golf club and launched another N2 mine into orbit.

"Another explosion, Sempai." Maya said helpfully. "This one isn't as large as the last, but you might want to tell him he's destroyed the angel already, because if he slices he could take out half of downtown."

"You want me to interrupt his game?" Ritsuko screamed.

"Just tell him that he's coming dangerously close to taking out the cable satellite that carries porn for Tokyo three and that he's been invited to a strip poker game with the staff," Maya suggested.

Ritsuko was about to refuse, not wanting to incur the drunken sociopath's anger by lying to him, when she noticed Maya had a deck of cards and a box filled with bottles of assorted alcohol with her.

IIIIIIIIII

Gendo's scream echoed through the hospital ward and neatly summoned the nearest medical technician.

"What in the hell is the meaning of this?" Gendo demanded shrilly.

"Something wrong?" the med tech asked.

"Explain this!" Gendo demanded shrilly.

"Explain what, ma'am?"

"Why in the hell am I in one of the female clone bodies?" Gendo demanded. "Answer quickly or I swear to god that you'll be begging for death when I'm through with you." Actually, the man would be tortured to death either way but Gendo saw no reason to share that little tidbit of information.

"Perhaps I should direct your questions to the Doctor." The tech had been around long enough to know that passing the buck was the best thing to do. Normally he'd toss the little nutcase to the duty nurse, but since she'd done him a favor recently...

"No need," Gendo said coldly. The one good thing about this little 'transfer' was that it neatly took care of all 'his' injuries. "Why don't you just give me some alone time?"

"Whatever you want," the tech agreed. He stepped out of the room and headed towards the phone in the nurse's station. Apparently whatever the poor girl had gone through had driven her insane. 'Well, a few hundred CCs of Thorazine should take care of that.'

Gendo waited a hundred heartbeats before making 'his' move. The first thing he needed was information. He walked over to the computer station and pulled up 'his' chart.

IIIIIIIIII

Shinji put the barrel of the revolver to his temple and pulled the trigger. The hammer came down with a dull 'click.'

"Yer turn," he slurred to the rabidly paling Bosozoku gang leader.

"We've pulled the trigger five times," the man protested weakly.

"Jes means I win dis one," Shinji agreed drunkenly, "yer turn."

"How about we double the pay out," one of the other members suggested.

"Trible it 'n toss in yer bikes and yeh got a deal," Shinji replied after a moment of thought. The boy got up and stumbled out of the smokey clubhouse.

"Are we really going to give him our bikes?" one of the younger members whined.

"Do you know who that was?" the leader whispered fearfully.

IIIIIIIIII

It had taken Gendo a while to figure out where they'd hidden his medical records and it wasn't until he thought to do a search based on the room number that he found his answer.

Gendo frowned as he read 'his' chart. Dehydration, atrophied muscles, signs of . . . "sexual abuse?" 'he' said aloud.

His frown deepened, not only had those incompetent bastards put 'him' in one of the clones, they had put 'him' into the one 'he' used as a personal play toy. He shuddered as he remembered what he'd done to the body he was currently inhabiting.

"They will pay," Gendo promised in a low but distinctly feminine voice.

"Time for your shots," the tech said cheerfully, as he walked in with a large and painful looking hypodermic in his hands.

IIIIIIIIII

Shinji stumbled through the maze of halls that made up the Geofront until he felt an uncomfortable pressure in his bladder. Stumbling up to the nearest object, he unzipped and . . ."

IIIIIIIIII

Ritsuko was on the bridge when the lights suddenly flickered and then went out. Back ups kicked in a few seconds later but the bottle blond was still irate.

"God damn it," Ristuko cursed, "what now?"

"The MAGI have gone out, ma'am."

"I can see that," Ritsuko growled, "what I want to know is why?"

IIIIIIIIII

Iruel was a bit of a tech geek compared to his brothers, so he'd decided to play to his strengths and hack the DNA of the semi-organic computer system in Nerv. The fact that he could have infiltrated the LCL production tanks and reached what they all thought was Adam never even occurred to him.

Of course the fact that Gendo had implanted Adam's embryonic form into his hand shortly after it was delivered to Nerv and Shinji had Gendo's original body cremated and the ashes scattered on the men's room's floor of the local bus station made all that moot anyway.

Yes, the plan was a good one when the many glaring flaws were ignored. Unfortunately for Iruel, human urine, with a 10% alcohol content by volume, proved to be too much for the MAGI and the resulting surge of electricity fried the angel.

Shinji had once again saved the human race and the cost was only a few billion dollars and a thousand man hours to repair the three computers. It was one of the least expensive victories ever.

IIIIIIIIII

The electricity going out was exactly the chance that Gendo had been waiting for. 'He' silently slipped out of the secure hospital room and into the nearest air vent.

Thankfully the hybrid body 'he' occupied was more resistant to most anti-psychotics than his old body had been, as it allowed him to slowly puzzle 'his' way out of the maze of vents and onto the street, despite being loaded with enough meds to knock Timothy Leary on his ass.

Stumbling around the street, blinded by the bright sunlight, still drugged half way to hell and back, and wearing only a hospital gown, Gendo staggered into the hands of a Bosozoku gang that Shinji had made the acquaintance of earlier.

"Hey, she'd make us enough money to replace out hogs!" one of the bike . . . er pedestrians pointed out.

"She looks a lot like that blue haired chick that brought the truck for Ikari's bikes," one of the others pointed out nervously.

The gang leader paused before whipping out a phone and making a call.

IIIIIIIIII

Shinji pulled out his ringing cell phone in the middle of class.

Hikari would normally have said something about using phones in school, but since this was Shinji . . .

"Huh, really?"

Glancing over at Rei he shrugged and tossed her the phone.

Rei held the phone up to her ear and her normally quiet voice made it difficult to hear any of the conversation.

"Yes, I believe some physical exercise would be good for her. Ten percent of the profits should be sufficient. Have a nice day."

IIIIIIIIII

Shinji looked down at the grave with an unreadable expression. With a sigh, he pulled a flask out of his pocket and poured the contents on the tomb stone.

"I just hope you had an affair," he said, "and I'll never understand why you married the bastard."

IIIIIIIIII

Gendo swore as 'he' crawled out of the 'club house' that had been his 'place of business' for the previous week.

'They would pay,' Gendo promised 'himself' as 'he' passed rows upon rows of shiny new motorcycles. As soon as 'he' found a doctor willing to do the needed surgeries and gene therapy, he would go back to NERV, assume his rightful position, and make them all pay. But first, 'he' had to sneak back into NERV to gather the resources needed to enact 'his' cunning plan.

IIIIIIIIII

Rei walked into NERV supply and waited patiently for the Supply Officer to notice her. "We are going to need to change the contents of the 'dealing with Shinji' female newcomer pack."

"Oh?" the Supply officer motioned for Rei to continue.

"I do not believe that the condoms included in the pack will fit Shinji properly."

The supply officer held up her pinky with a disappointed sigh. In reply, Rei licked her lips and held up a clenched fist.

"I'll get right on that," the Supply Officer agreed cheerfully.

"Thank you," Rei said calmly.

"How'd you find out?"

"Someone was careless enough to leave surveillance footage of Pilot Ikari changing on the network with inadequate security protection," Rei explained.

"How much for a copy?"

IIIIIIIIII

Gendo frowned, how in the world had his mysterious foe managed to find and destroy every one of the caches 'he'd' hidden around NERV? Gendo forced his breathing to slow, it wasn't the end of the world. All 'he' had to do was find a computer terminal and he'd be able to access his bank accounts. Not to mention the fact that there were still a couple caches outside the Geofront scattered around Tokyo III.

A cold smile formed on Gendo's new face. It was clear that 'he' was up against a formidable foe. A foe that would soon learn the folly of opposing an Ikari.

IIIIIIIIII

The corner of Shinji's mouth turned up a bit as he regarded his opponent. It had been a hard journey to make it this far, many had fallen before his superior skills leaving only one to challenge him.

"All in," Shinji said calmly. If this worked, he'd have a shiny new bracelet to add to his collection along with several million dollars and the right to brag that he was the best in the world. If it didn't, well he'd still get several million dollars.

"Call," Rei said calmly as she laid down her cards. "Four Tens."

IIIIIIIIII

One of the bridge bunnies calmly noted the alert on her screen and turned to address her superiors, "pattern blue detected ma'am."

"Where?" Misato replied.

"Approaching Tokyo III, should reach us within fifteen minutes if it maintains current speed."

"Prepare EVAs for launch," the lush ordered.

"Yes ma'am."

IIIIIIIIII

Mongo was many things. A Section Two Agent, a world class fighter, a surprisingly good dancer, and an excellent chef. What Mongo was not was extraordinarily intelligent and able to change preconceived notions on the fly.

"Dere you are," he grunted when he spotted the blue haired girl slinking through one of the less used passage ways of the Geofront.

"Wha . . ." Gendo was surprised to find himself grabbed by the back of his stolen coveralls and lifted to eye level.

"Dey needs yous in yer EVA," Mongo announced. The large man turned and began walking towards the launch bay.

"I am not the first child you simpering fool," Gendo screamed, "I am your commander and I order you to put me down this instant."

IIIIIIIIII

Misato was hyperventilating. Two of her pilots were missing and the third was half an hour away from the nearest access point. This was bad, this was very bad. At the rate things were going, the angel would arrive before any of her pilots were around to confront it.

"They've found the first child, ma'am," one of the bridge bunnies announced, "loading her into EVA Unit 00 now."

"Launch when ready," Misato said, sagging in relief. It looked like the extinction of the human race might be delayed by another day.

IIIIIIIIII

Gendo raged, how dare they put their Commander in an EVA. How dare they risk their Commander's life when there were children ready and able to take the risks. Heads would roll when he regained his rightful position, he would stain Tokyo bay red with the blood of those that opposed him.

However great it was, Gendo's rage was nothing compared to that of that of the Soul of Unit 00. A Soul that had just been given an opportunity to exact a bit of revenge on the man who had imprisoned her in a machine.

IIIIIIIIII

The Bridge crew watched as EVA Unit 00 rocketed the the surface to confront the angel. They then watched in shock as the EVA turned and ejected the cockpit into the body of the angel.

"What should we do, ma'am?" one of the bridge crew stammered.

"We need to find a way to get Rei out of that thing," Misato said firmly, "then . . ."

"Why do we need to do that, ma'am?" Maya asked with a frown.

"Because I am not going to write off one of my pilots without at least attempting a rescue," Misato growled.

"I mean, why are we going to do that when Rei is safe and sound?"

"Wha . . ."

The perky tech just pointed to a television screen that showed Rei and Shinji staring across a card table at each other.

"Is this live?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"How did you find this?" Ritsuko interjected.

"I always watch the showdown at the final table," Maya explained shyly.

"Drop every N2 mine we have into that thing," Misato commanded, "now."

"Yes, ma'am."

IIIIIIIIII

Shinji woke up with a raging headache. After taking a few dozen 'medicinal' shots of bourbon, he felt well enough to examine his surroundings.

"How in the hell did I find an EVA in Nevada?" he mumbled to himself.

IIIIIIIIII

Rei walked into NERV the next day with a new bracelet on her wrist. The tournament had been . . . enjoyable, she was going to have to do it again at some point in the future.

"Where have you been," Misato confronted the girl.

"Las Vegas," Rei replied calmly, "why?"

"You know that you're not permitted to leave the country without written permission and a Section Two escort," Misato growled. She expected this sort of behavior from her other pilots, well, one of her other pilots.

"Pilot Ikari was bored and contemplating several things that would have violated NERV general orders two through seventy five. NERV general order one states that . . ."

"Never mind," Misato sighed, "I . . ." she cut off when her phone began ringing. "I gotta take this."

Rei watched the interesting series of emotions that played out on her superior's face as the call commenced. It started at annoyance, followed by disbelief, and finally . . .

"What do you mean stolen?" Misato shrieked.

"Just that," the tinny voice on the other side of the phone replied, "Eva Unit 04 is missing. The United States Government has decided to transfer Unite 03 to Tokyo III to simplify security efforts."

"Huh?"

"You're getting another EVA, congratulations."

"Why didn't you say so," Misato giggled, "send it right over."

IIIIIIIIII

NERVs' Assessment and Recovery wasn't the most glamorous department in the Tokyo III branch. Their job was to examine the field of battle looking for data that could provide future insight in their war against the angels and to recover any NERV equipment that had been left behind.

They were currently pouring over the scene of the last 'battle' between Unit One and the Twelfth Angel.

"Sir," one of the recovery crew called out, "you need to take a look at this."

"How in the hell did it survive?" The two men looked down at the battered Entry Plug with twin looks of confusion on their faces.

IIIIIIIIII

Misato opened her door and stared with bleary eyes at the man who'd disturbed her sleep.

"What?" she screamed. That was immediately followed by a wince as her headache made itself known.

"Excuse me, ma'am," the well-groomed man began politely. "Have you heard the word of The Holy Liver?"

"Get lost, Heathen!" She slammed the door in the soul solicitor's face. 'Asshole, everyone knows true followers never bother anyone before noon.' She winced again. 'Stupid headache.'

IIIIIIIIII

Shinji ignored the roar of the crowd as he leapt into the ring.

"Little man!" his massive opponent roared in a deep voice, "do you really think that you can last two minutes against . . . THE BONE SAW?"

"BONE SAW! BONE SAW!" the crowd cheered.

Shinji just smiled . . .

IIIIIIIIII

Rei walked into the infirmary and handed a file to the chief of surgeons. "Perform this procedure on the injured pilot," Rei ordered.

"I thought you were the injured pilot?"

"One of the reasons that this procedure was ordered was to avoid that confusion in the future," Rei explained.

IIIIIIIIII

The blood-covered paramedic reached into his bag for another I.V. solution as he and his partner did everything in their power to keep their patient alive.

"We're loosing him!" the other paramedic called out.

"Hook him up to the defib!"

"Clear!"

The massive wrestler's manager watched in shock as the lifeblood of his talent stained the ring.

"So," Shinji interrupted the man's introspection, "looks like you owe me some money."

"The prize goes to anyone that can last five minutes," the manager said dully, "you had him down in less then thirty seconds."

"Does that mean you're not going to pay me?" Shinji asked in a low dangerous voice.

"It means . . ." the manager turned to make eye contact. "It means that, here's your money."

"Pleasure doing business with you," Shinji said as he pocketed the wad of bills.

IIIIIIIIII

Gendo woke up to find 'himself' gazing at another unfamiliar ceiling. The last thing he remembered was . . . oh yes, that's right. Mentally adding the entire bridge crew to his people to torture to death list, Gendo ripped the tubes out of his nose and crawled out of the hospital bed.

Gendo felt something brush against his leg as he staggered to the access hatch. Not allowing himself to feel hope, he slowly reached down and confirmed that yes, he was a man again. His elation died a quick death as further examination revealed that he was only half a man, well one third a man if one wants to get technical, and that he still retained a bit of his 'femininity' below his so called 'manhood.'

Gendo silently promised himself that 'he' would extract a bloody vengeance on whoever was responsible for making the former commander of NERV a hermaphrodite.

IIIIIIIIII

Toji walked out of the school and was immediately confronted by a group of creepy old men.

"Hey kid," one of the old men began, "wanna make a bit of extra money?"

"But you gotta keep it a secret," another agreed.

"Not interested," Toji replied as he pushed by them.

"We'll give you candy," another tried.

"All the cool kids are coming alone to isolated locations with us," the first agreed.

"Not falling for that trick again," Toji muttered to himself.

"How would you like a chance to get revenge on a certain person?" the last man spoke up.

"Revenge?" Toji asked eagerly. "On Shinji?"

"Who else," the old man agreed with a grin.

"Wait . . . this isn't a trick to get me somewhere alone so you can take turns with my innocent young body is it?" Toji asked suspiciously.

"It isn't," the old man said firmly.

"It isn't?" one of the others whispered to a third. "Then why are we here?"

"That's on Tuesday, this is Wednesday. Try and keep the schedule straight," the old man muttered to the complainer.

"Hey kid, you busy Tuesday?"

IIIIIIIIII

Two cold red eyes watched as Gendo serviced 'his' only remaining cache and removed the cash and other valuables he'd hidden.

Gendo stared dumbly at the computer screen. How in the world did his mysterious enemy drain his double secret emergency account? For that matter, how in the hell did they even know it existed?

IIIIIIIIII

Toji got into the skin-tight plugsuit and stepped out of the dressing room to meet his destiny.

"I'm ready," he said confidently, doing his best to ignore the way one of the old men was licking his lips. "What do I need to do?"

"Just get into the entry plug," one of the techs replied.

"Why aren't we doing this in Tokyo III?" Toji asked as they strapped him in.

"Need to give them enough time to scramble," the tech explained.

"What?" Toji said dumbly.

The tech ignored the patsy, choosing instead to focus on his work. "Preparations complete, close it up and start the countdown."

Toji was starting to have second thoughts about this whole pilot thing. "I don't think . . ." anything else the boy was going to say was cut off as the plug closed and docked.

"Let's get out of here," the tech suggested. "We can launch from a safe distance."

IIIIIIIIII

Misato was waiting at the helo pad when their visitor arrived. Dressed in an impeccably tailored uniform, he was the UN's latest attempt to gain some measure of control over NERV after the disappearance of the organization's commanding officer.

"General Nakayama," Misato saluted. "Major Ka . . ."

"That remains to be seen," the man interrupted arrogantly. "Take me to the bridge."

"Yes, sir," Misato replied sourly.

They were about half way to the bridge when the alarms started sounding.

"What's that?" the General demanded, a trace of fear in his voice.

"Probably another angel attack, sir," Misato answered.

"Hurry it up then, you fool!" the General ordered.

"Yes, sir," Misato agreed. 'Asshole!'

They arrived on the bridge to find the crew handling the situation with their normal level of professionalism.

"We're all gonna die," one of the bridge bunnies sobbed.

"Repent!" another screamed. "For the day of judgment is upon us, the Holy Liver is angry!"

"I picked the wrong day to stop sniffing Misato's chair," Maya muttered.

"You and me both," Ritsuko replied, before they both turned bright red and hurried to look busy.

"What's the situation?" Misato called out.

"Unit 03 has been taken over by an angel," Maya reported. "We are scrambling Units 00 and 02."

"What about the other one?" the General demanded.

"We are unable to locate the pilot of Unit 01 at this time, General," Maya replied.

"What do you mean, unable?" the General demanded.

"We know he's somewhere in the Geofront, General," Maya reported. "Just not sure where. We've got Section Two working on it."

"Have their commander relieved and arrested," the General ordered. "Let's see if that puts a fire under his second in command."

"Yes, sir," Maya agreed. 'Asshole!' "Units 00 and 02 have intercepted the Angel," Maya reported. Seventeen seconds later. "Units 00 and 02 have been defeated, the angel has a clear path to Tokyo Three."

"Tell Section Two that if they don't find him in the next five minutes, I'll have them shot," the General ordered fearfully. "If he's not on the battlefield in the next ten, I'll have the bridge crew shot!" his voice ended shrilly.

Two minutes later, a bevy of nervous agents arrived with a covered gurney.

"We found him, sir," the agent reported. "He was sleeping off a binge of formaldehyde and cannabis in the morgue reefer."

"Is he even still alive?"

"Two liters of formaldehyde won't put him down for more then an hour or so," one of the Section Two agents said proudly.

"It's true, General," Misato agreed. "One of our doctors resigned last month to start a rapidly growing religion devoted to the worship of Shinji's immortal liver."

"Wake him up and get him in the robot then," the General ordered.

"We find it's best to let him wake up on his own schedule, General," a Section Two agent said nervously. The number of names on the memorial for fallen agents doubled the last day they'd been ordered to disturb Shinji's rest.

"If you want something done right," the General muttered. Two quick strides brought the man to the gurney and he seized Shinji by the collar. "Wake up or I'll have you on charges for sleeping on duty." He slapped Shinji across the face. "I said wake up you lazy urk . . ."

"Maya," Misato called out cheerfully.

"I've had cleaning crews on standby for the last five minutes, ma'am," Maya said with a grin.

"Good work, Maya."

"Thank you, ma'am." Maya stared down at her readouts. "Ma'am," she called out, an undercurrent of nervousness in her voice.

"What is it?" Misato asked.

"The angel has just destroyed the Tokyo Three distillery," Maya reported. The bridge went silent as they considered the news, and slowly, hesitantly, every eye turned to regard Shinji.

Shinji's eyes shot open. "Prep Unit One for launch," he ordered in a gravelly voice, bits of general still dripping from his hands.

His bloodshot eyes swept over the room. "Now!"

"Yes, sir!" Maya squeaked.

IIIIIIIIII

Toji laughed in delight when Unit One took the field. Sure, it had sucked when the angel had taken over his EVA and he'd had to spend the first fifteen minutes listening to it cry and try to figure out where it could hide to escape 'The Destroyer's' wrath, but after a little pep talk, and a lot of lies, he'd convinced it to do its job and now he finally had a chance to get his revenge.

"Let's get him!" Toji cheered. Pilot, angel, and EVA reached an accord and they threw a devastating Jab that all three were certain would cause the destruction of their foe. "Uh . . ." Toji paled when unit one raised an arm and caught the punch and began tightening its grip. "Oh shit!"

IIIIIIIIII

Misato watched in horror as Shinji showed the world what he thought of the destruction of his favorite place within five minutes walk of his seldom-occupied apartment.

Maya began hyperventilating.

Misato sighed and walked over to her, unbuttoning her blouse she grabbed the panicking girl and shoved Maya's face into her cleavage for a couple of seconds until she calmed down.

"Turn off the visual feeds," Misato ordered, "restrict your view of the fight to the remaining sensors."

"Yes, ma'am."

This seemed to be the cue for all of the bridge bunnies to start shaking and Misato sighed and went from station to station 'calming' them down. "I swear I have to do this every fight these days!"

"It's why you were promoted," Ritsuko mumbled into Misato's cleavage.

The pale, but much recovered, bridge bunnies monitored the fight for the next several minutes. "Unit 01, returning to launch bay, ma'am."

IIIIIIIIII

Shinji stepped out of the entry plug and onto the deck.

"Would sir care for a post fight gin?" Unit 01's Crew Chief asked as he presented a bottle to their returning hero.

"Sir would," Shinji agreed. Grabbing the bottle, Shinji bit off the cork and took several swallows.

The Crew Chief took possession of the now empty bottle and held up a mouthpiece with a long hose trailing off it. "Would sir care for a post fight toke?"

"Sir would," Shinji agreed, taking a long pull.

"Um, Shinji, sir." A nervous tech approached the pilot.

"What is it?"

"Sir," the tech began hesitantly. Damn that short straw. "I'm not questioning you or anything, but was it really necessary to do . . . that to the angel?"

"Yes!" Shinji barked as he walked past the trembling woman and out of the launch bay.

"On the bright side, maybe this will convince the other angels to stop attacking," Ritsuko said cheerfully as the janitor wheeled out his mop to take care of the rapidly growing puddle underneath the luckiest tech in the world.

IIIIIIIIII

The teacher looked over the rioting students for a few minutes, waiting for them to quiet down on their own. After it became apparent that there was no way that was going to happen, he banged his fist on his podium until the roar died down enough for his voice to be heard.

"I want you all to join me in giving a warm welcome back to Toji who just got out of the hospital," the Teacher announced.

"He was gone?" Hikari whispered to the girl next to her, receiving only an apathetic shrug in reply.

"I just want to thank everyone for the cards and flowers," Toji said emotionally. There'd been some sort of mix up and he'd never received any of it, but he knew his classmates would have sent him something. "It's good to be back . . . I . . . I still wake up screaming sometimes and the memory of what happened will always haunt me. I . . . I know that with your support I can get past this. Thank you."

"Very good, Toji, why don't you take your old seat back?"

"Yes, sensei." Toji shuffled over to his desk and carefully placed a large rubber doughnut on his chair before slowly sitting down with a wince. Damn that Shinji, damn him to hell!

Kensuke managed to contain himself for almost thirty two seconds. Imagine it, his best friend was an EVA pilot. Granted, Toji had to be the worst EVA pilot that ever lived, but just the fact that he'd been chosen had to count for something.

"So . . . I was wondering," Kensuke began, "what was being a pilot like?"

"What was it like?" Toji asked with burning eyes. "You want me to tell you what it was like?"

"Yes," Kensuke agreed eagerly, "tell me everything."

"To start with my Eva was taken over by an angel," Toji growled.

"And?" He really didn't see what the big deal was, Shinji killed angels like it was a hobby and there was even a rumor that he'd let Asuka kill one the week before, so it couldn't be all that hard.

"So they sent Ikari to stop me," Toji growled.

"You wanted another shot at Shinji didn't you?" Kensuke said, figuring that Toji had used the angel as an excuse to make another attempt on Ikari where the female students couldn't interfere.

"As a pilot, you can feel everything that happens to your Eva," Toji said with haunted eyes. "Everything."

"So when Ikari shoved a telephone pole up the EVA's ..." he began, finally putting the pieces together and remembering the footage he'd seen on Maya's home page.

"Stop," Toji sobbed, "please stop."

"Come on," Kensuke whined, "tell me the details. Your fight was the only one that I couldn't get any decent footage on, other than the one that took place in NERV headquarters, and they haven't put any of it online yet."

IIIIIIIIII

Far above the Earth in orbit above Tokyo III, the angel Arael floated silently as it tried to come up with a plan that would allow it to survive the wrath of the-one-that-MUST NOT-be-named.

Being an angel of destruction had seemed like such a sweet gig, you got to strut around Heaven like you owned the place and the chicks really dug the whole 'avenging angel' thing. Then HE appeared and everything changed. Instead of being sent to kick around a bunch of primitives, they were being sent to certain death.

'One sortie and you've got it made,' Arael reminded himself. 'One sortie and you never have to come back to this death trap'.

After detecting something that felt vaguely like one of the pilots, Arael sent out a cautious probe to make sure that HE was nowhere near the field of battle. Relieved that the coast seemed to be clear, the angel unleashed a devastating psychic attack.

Far below, Gendo screamed in torment. It felt as if his brain was being flayed by thousands of tiny flensing knives.

Mission mostly accomplished and wondering how many showers it would take to feel clean again after touching the mind of the 'pilot' below, Arael rocketed out of the solar system to the extraction point.

Screw it, chicks had dug him before he'd returned and as the only being that had survived a mission against HIM, it wouldn't be too difficult to see how many girls he had to go through to forget the feel of . . . best not to dwell on such things.

IIIIIIIIII

Mari Suzuhara was having the best week ever!

First, her annoying older brother had disappeared for a few days. Then, when Toji returned, he'd locked himself in his room to cry. Finally, to top it all off, her parents had decided that she'd been traumatized by the whole thing and agreed to a trip to the zoo.

Mari loved the zoo, especially the big cat exhibit during feeding time.

The young girl got up on her tiptoes and peered down into the enclosure. "Mommy, why is there a man in the pit with the tigers?" 'And why the hell aren't the tigers rending the idiot limb from limb like they're supposed to?'

"What man?" her mother followed the girl's pointing finger and gasped in shock at the sight. Below, a scruffy looking boy, was laying prone using a pile of bloody steaks as a pillow. "Zookeeper!"

"What is it?" one of the zoo employees asked.

"There's a boy in the pit," she blurted out. "You have to save him!"

"What?" The zookeeper's eyes bulged, before he rushed to the edge and looked into the pit. "Oh, that's just Shinji."

"Shinji?" Mari chirped. Wasn't that the name her stupid brother was always cursing?

"The tigers know not to mess with him," the zookeeper explained. Not after seeing what he did to the first time he'd decided to nap in their enclosure. "He'll wake up and leave in a few hours."

Mari's eyes were fixed on the sleeping boy. The little girl licked her lips as she felt a pull towards the boy, she'd always loved big predators. Now if she could just find a way into the pit...

On the far side of the enclosure, the trembling tigers, genetically engineered Smilodons the size of Shetland ponies, were huddled together, far from the dangerous creature napping on their lunch.

IIIIIIIIII

Deep below the surface of the Earth, a bevy of the most powerful men on the planet sat in a heavily secured bunker to discuss matters.

"The sixteenth angel is late," number 07 spoke up.

As it happened, the sixteenth angel wasn't going to be making an appearance since Armisael had gotten a note from his doctor stating that he couldn't go into battle, because he had a weak bladder.

It was true, just the thought of facing Shinji had that effect on most sane creatures.

"Perhaps we should send the last pilot early," number 05 offered.

"Make it so," Keel ordered, unaware that the video system had malfunctioned and revealed to the other members of the committee the fact that he was dressed in an red Starfleet jumpsuit.

'Damned Trekkies,' number 11 thought silently, caressing the hilt of his lightsaber.

IIIIIIIIII

Koworu listened attentively as his guide explained everything he needed to know about working for the Tokyo III branch of NERV.

"The final thing is don't do anything to annoy Shinji," the guide said firmly. "Actually, come to think of it, it's best to stay far away from Shinji until you have a chance to memorize the list of things that have annoyed him in the past."

"Who is Shinji?" Koworo asked, playing dumb.

"The third child," the guide whispered. "Destroyer of angels, hopes, and dreams. Pray to The Holy Liver that you never annoy him."

IIIIIIIIII

Gendo growled in annoyance as he regarded the latest setback to his plans.

What did the old men want now? It had taken him weeks to recover from what the angel had done to him and he could not afford to waste any more time, but he dared not ignore the request for a meeting and perhaps, perhaps the situation could be turned to his advantage.

'Yes,' he thought to himself. 'Just one more step in my quest to regain control.'

IIIIIIIIII

Shinji stumbled into work early that day, just in time to enjoy a late lunch in the NERV cafeteria.

"Do you mind if I sit with you?" a familiar looking boy asked hopefully.

"Go ahead," Shinji replied, trying to place the face.

"My name is Koworu," the boy introduced himself. "I'm the new pilot."

Shinji snapped his fingers, that's right. "Good to see you again."

To the amazement of the cafeteria staff, Shinji spent the next few minutes conversing with the new pilot. To the joy of the cleaning crew, the conversation was such that it did not look like they were going to have to mop up any blood or dispose of any corpses.

"It was a pleasure to speak with you, Shinji," Koworu said with a smile. To the boy's amazement, he'd actually enjoyed his discussion with the man who had ended so many of his fellow angels.

"Likewise," Shinji belched.

"I love you," Koworu said serenely, having discovered in himself an attraction to Shinji similar to the one felt by a young girl, who was currently hiding in a tiger pit waiting for the young man's return who the tigers, not wanting to become extinct again, were avoiding getting near.

"Look . . . uh . . ." A plan formed in Shinji's alcohol soaked brain. "Hold that thought for a bit." He checked his watch. "Meet me at the cafe across from the south entrance in an hour."

"Alright," the angel agreed, shocked that he was still alive.

IIIIIIIIII

For the thousandth time, Gendo cursed his unseen enemies. He, the former master of Tokyo III was being forced to sneak out of the country in the cargo hold of an aircraft. Just a few short months earlier, he'd have been in a private jet escorted by hundreds of deadly fighters. Now, now he was crouched behind a crate full of howler monkeys. To make matters worse, the idiot that had cut the air holes had made them large enough for the accursed simians to reach out with a feces filled fist which they would then throw, with great enthusiasm, at the rightful Commander of NERV. These indignities will not be forgotten, Gendo promised himself. Someone will pay for this.

IIIIIIIIII

The last angel was waiting when Shinji arrived with a pathetic looking wretch in tow.

"Kaworu, this is K . . . uh . . . something," Shinji waved at the geek, "he loves EVAs and anything to do with the military. He says that he's willing to do anything to learn more about EVAs. K . . . Kensucky, this is . . ."

"It's Kensu . . ."

"Shut up," Shinji said calmly.

"Yes, sir," Kensuke agreed meekly.

"As I was saying. This is Kaworu, he's a Pilot and he's also apparently attracted to other men. It seems like you two could fill each other's needs." And assorted orifices. Shinji smiled, he'd always felt bad about killing the last angel, and he did owe what's his name. Damn he was good, killing two birds with one stone. "Have fun."

IIIIIIIIII

Rei resisted the urge to growl in frustration as she walked up to the command console. Time to take matters into her own hands. Looked like if you wanted something done right, you had to do it yourself after all.

"What are you doing, Rei?" the bridge bunny asked, wondering at the girl's odd behavior.

"I am . . ." Rei paused, this probably wasn't the best time to use the truth. "Hoping that you could tell me about your job, since your position is vital to the defeat of the angels."

"Oh." the bridge bunny's eyes were sparkling, finally someone who didn't think she could be replaced by a partially trained chimp. "Well, the first thing you need to know about my job is . . ."

Rei ignored the ravings of the trained monkey as her mind worked to find a solution to the problem of the bridge crew. Perhaps she could get Shinji's unwitting help on this? She mused. It was his mess after all.

IIIIIIIIII

Kaworu was a bit confused. First the strange boy Shinji had introduced him to had taken him to a strange hotel with a heart shaped bed. The boy had then closed his eyes and dropped to his knees.

"What are you doing?" Kaworu inquired.

"Whatever I have to," the boy replied. "If this is what it takes to learn more about being a pilot, then I'm more then willing to take a shot in the mouth."

"Perhaps there's been a misunderstanding?"

IIIIIIIIII

Rei spent a few moments to examine the lock on her co-pilot's locker and it was with a distinct sense of satisfaction she felt as she finished her appraisal. The device Shinji had used to secure his locker was top of the line, one that she'd have never been able to bypass. It was therefore quite fortunate that he had neglected to close the hasp before locking it.

"Perhaps pilot Ikari finds it difficult to open it under the influence of massive quantities of illicit substances?" Rei mused. No matter, it was time to enact phase one of her plan.

IIIIIIIIII

It hadn't been easy, but Kaworu had managed to extricate himself from the situation with the military mad Otaku with his virtue intact. After that, it had only been a matter of finding the closest bar to the last place he'd seen Shinji.

"Have fun with what's his name?" Shinji asked.

"I did not," Kaworu replied. "Do you happen to know why he requested that I dress in a plugsuit or a general's uniform?"

"Bartender, another round of shots," Shinji barked feeling way too sober to deal with any of this.

"I suppose it doesn't matter," the other pilot agreed. "And while I do appreciate that you introduced us, it is you that I wish to spend time with."

"Dude, I'm not gay," Shinji said firmly.

"I don't mean that I love you in a sexual sense. My kind don't procreate that way. I mean that I love your soul as it shines forth from your body, touching everyone around you," Kaworu explained with a blissful look on his face.

"This would be a lot easier to deal with if you were female," Shinji sighed, not able to bring himself to cause pain to the first person to ever tell him that he was loved.

"Like this?" Kaworu asked, his body shifting like LCL for a moment until a silver haired girl that could pass for Rei's older sister stood in his place.

Shinji's eyebrows actually raised a bit, this was new. "A little more in the chest area... good. A little shorter... not quite that short... perfect. A little more in the curves, without affecting the breasts... excellent. Fuller lips and longer hair... perfect!"

Shinji examined the new incarnation of Kaworu thoroughly, often using his hands to check firmness. "OK, now let's go back to my place and I'll show you the physical aspect to go with the mental. We can pick up Rei on the way."

IIIIIIIIII

It was with mixed feelings of relief and disappointment that Kensuke left the love hotel after it became clear that the pilot was not going to return. On the plus side, his ass remained unscathed. On the minus, he hadn't gotten any juicy information about humanity's last line of defense.

"Damn it," the boy squealed. "I'd do anything to find out more about NERV." He rounded a corner and was confronted by a group of creepy old men.

"Did you say, anything?" The lead old man asked, giving the boy a once over.

IIIIIIIIII

Every eye turned to regard the first child as she slowly waddled onto the bridge.

"It seems that someone has switched Pilot Ikari's lysergic acid diethylamide pills with sildenafil citrate," Rei announced. "The line begins outside the Dining Facility." Rei frowned at the blank looks that appeared on the bridge crew's faces. Uncultured imbeciles, all of them.

"Ahem, an anonymous person has replaced Pilot Ikari's LSD with Viagra. As I said before, the line begins outside the . . ." she paused to think of a word that wasn't too advanced for their microscopic intellects. "The place where you daily stuff your faces with low quality deep fried substances."

She stepped out of the doorway to avoid being trampled as every female in the room rushed out to secure her place.

"I also thought it prudent to mention that Section Two has routed the feed from the security cameras into conference rooms one through twenty four." A small smile appeared on Rei's face as the male staff stampeded out.

IIIIIIIIII

Kensuke took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and opened his mouth.

"I'm first," he heard one of the old men call out eagerly.

"Wait!" The boy opened his eyes and closed his mouth.

"What is it?"

"You promise that you'll tell me about EVAs if I do this, right?" He asked nervously.

"You do this, and we might even make you a pilot the next time we need a disposable patsy," the creepy old man replied.

"Which one of you was first again?"

IIIIIIIIII

The members of SEELE exchanged wary glances. This was the first time they'd met in person in decades.

Gendo glared at the old men around the table. "Why was I called here?"

"A question all of us would like to know, chairman," number 03 spoke for the rest of them.

"But . . . it was you who called me here."

IIIIIIIIII

A look of profound satisfaction appeared on Rei's face as the computer reported detonation. Time to go back and see if Shinji was ready for another romp. A thought occurred, and perhaps she should decant a few of her sisters to join in. Sharing was caring after all.

AN: Thought about waiting till Groundhog's Day to put out the second half, decided against it.

Title, scenes, and a ton of polish by dogbertcarroll.

More Polish by Tengokujin. Even more polish by ZC, SlickRCBD, Innortal, Kai Korhonen, zambkptkn, SP. Line by peterwatcher2002

Omake by David Brown

Shinji Ikari was on the floor of his cell in a fetal position, breathing with no inconsiderable amount of pain after his latest torture session. The door to his cell opened, and Section 2 dragged

him to his father's office.

"You're going to explain to me how you came to know about the Human Complementation Project, or you are going to die, right here, right now."

Shinji replied, "I still can't believe my mother ever fucked you, and Ritsuko? What's with that?"

"Kill him." Gendo commanded.

...The Section 2 agents did not respond.

"Obey me. Kill him now."

...The Section 2 agents continued to stand still.

..."I said kill him! What's wrong with you?" The two stone-faced guards still failed to respond. Instead, they fell over, completely stiff, as if they were mannequins.

A new voice spoke up in the darkness of the office. "I guess you just can't get good help these days."

"Who are you? What do you want?" Gendo Ikari demanded.

"Who am I? I'm just a guy on vacation. What I want is for you and I to have a frank exchange of views about the damage you and your dead Seele friends did to my island thirteen years ago."

"Dead?"

"Very much dead. I have no small experience in death, and I'm willing to share it when it's necessary."

...

Here's an idea - Asian reporter Trisha Takanawa isn't really Asian at all. She's not even a reporter. She's not even a goddess. But she is a Henchgirl...

Omake by Tom

Shinji's bleary eyes saw a blinking light on the counter and wondered what was aggravating him. Closing one eye to and trying hard to focus the other, he picked up the blinking device and saw that it was Misato's cell demanding to be recharged.

"It's damp. And it smells... interesting. Not bad, but she needs to lay off the beer."

Omake by me: Cameo

Misato walked onto the bridge and looked around with an odd expression on her face. It was quiet, too quiet.

"Where is everyone?" she whined.

"Main crew are having a party down in the old commander's office," one of the bridge crew replied.

"Who the hell are you?" Misato demanded.

"I'm Red, the reserve bridge tech."

"Reserve tech?"

"Yep," Red agreed, "whole place is being run by the bench."

"Oh," Misato said dumbly, "who's my stand in?"

"That would be Ed," Red replied.

"Well then where is he?"

"More importantly, shouldn't you be at a party right now?"

"Um . . ." Misato dithered, her sense of duty warred with her desire to get plastered. "I'll see you later," Misato called over her shoulder.

IIIIIIIIII

"Thought you'd run away did you?" a menacing voice asked. "Didn't peg you for the type," the voice admitted, "psych profile says that it wouldda been the Ikari boy . . . well, the old reports anyway."

Gendo looked up and squinted at the man through the glare. "Who are you?"

"Special Agent Ted, Section Two. There's an angel on the way and we need a pilot to meet it."

"But I'm not a pilot," Gendo protested, "I'm your commander."

IIIIIIIIII

Ritsuko awoke to the sirens blaring, a pounding headache and an odd taste in her mouth. Kinda reminded her of the times she and Misato used to share back in their days as roommates.

"Damn it," she groused, "the angels had to attack when we were all hung over didn't they?"

Omake: Unused Scene

"Shinji," the vice commander called out as he burst into the NERV movie theater. "Unit 03 has been taken over by an angel and . . ."

"And you're interrupting our movie time," Maya said rudely, "right Shinji?"

"Right," Shinji agreed, his unblinking gaze locked on the vintage lesbian porn splayed out on the big screen.

"Tell the angel to come back in a couple hours," Maya advised, "we're busy right now."

AN: I often write any number of scenes that get rejected for one reason or another. This is one of them.

Omake: What Happened

Shinji groaned in pain. "What happened?"

"You became one with me," Rei answered from her place in his arms. "After that you became one with the rest of the female NERV personnel, then the female students from our school, then me again, followed by the female NERVE personnel again, then our female school-mates, and finally me for a third time."

"Oh."

"Between our first and second encounters, I took the liberty of destroying SEELE and averting the third impact." Rei snuggled closer. "I realize that it was your job to do but you were taking too long and I don't believe I could have endured another redo without snapping and doing something unpleasant."

"Rei?"

"Yes, Shinji?"

"Ready for round four?" the pilot asked with a lecherous grin.


End file.
